In truth, the ratings break down more like this:
Dragon's Blood - 4 stars
Heart's Blood - 3 stars
A Sending of Dragons - 2 stars

With each book, the scope of the story and the world broadened, but in the vast and vaster spaces of that world, the narrative power of the story lost more and more momentum. It didn't help that Jakkin goes from a savvy, naive, goodhearted teen to a stupid, impulsive, tantrum-throwing young man. No doubt the broader world is at work there, too, but it's no less unpleasant for all that.

I'm not sure I'll read the last book in the series, especially since it was written over 20 years after the originals, but I'm glad I got to know Heart's Blood and, through her, Jakkin...even if the course of the trilogy eventually betrayed them both. ( )

Jakkin Stewart, a bonded apprentice working on a dragon farm, steals an egg and becomes a master when his dragon, Heart's Blood, becomes a champion fighter in the "pits;" however, Jakkin becomes embroiled unwillingly in planetary politics to rescue his girlfriend, Akki. Fleeing the secret police and saved by a dying Heart's Blood, the duo become more than human and commit to develop a new world on Austar IV. ( )

fantasy

My first exposure to Jane Yolen was her Pit Dragon series, and these books have always remained my favorites of hers. They are set on an imaginary planet which was first seen as uninhabitable and used as a dumping ground for criminals. Some of them survived, and a rough civilization arose out of the extreme desert climate. Very few animals and plants on Austar IV were useful to humans, but the people managed to domesticate large winged lizards they called dragons. The society of Austar IV is based on a system of indentured servitude- masters and bondsmen- and full of gambling, drugs and prostitution. Betting is huge part of the economy, largely based on dragon fights in the "pits". I'm presenting this as I originally read the series- three separate books-even though my copy is the three-in-one.

Dragon's Blood- The main character in Dragon's Blood is a teenage boy, Jakkin, who is a bondsman on a large dragon farm. His days are full of drudgery- mucking out dragon stalls, grooming and feeding the beasts. But unlike most of his companions who loathe their occupation, Jakkin likes working with the dragons and wants to train his own. He plans to steal an egg from his master, then raise and train the dragon in secret in the desert, hoping to buy his freedom with money he can earn from pit fights. His plan is fraught with danger and unforseen difficulties, but he finds an unexpected ally in his master's daughter, Akki. She's one of the stronger characters in the book, which makes up a little bit for the fact that on Austar IV, it's an accepted fact that most women are in "baggeries" (this aspect of the society is not a major part of the story, but only hinted at). Although Jakkin based his gamble for freedom on thievery, I still found his character sympathetic and even admirable at times. I really liked how the dragons were depicted. Like Anne McCaffrey's dragons, Yolen's are telepathic- but very few people actually communicate with them, and the dragons do not "speak" in words and sentences; instead they form mental pictures with colors and shapes. They are quite believable creatures with individual personalities that don't reach above their bestial nature.

Heart's Blood- In this sequel, young Jakkin has reached his dream of owning his own dragon, and his freedom. But being a master is not exactly as he'd imagined. He often finds his new role awkward, especially in the strained relationship with one of his old friends and companions, who is now Jakkin's bondservant. Even though being a master gives him greater privileges, Jakkin still prefers to spend time working with his dragon rather than immersing himself in the seedier entertainments of the city. But when he learns that his girlfriend Akki, who he hasn't seen in a year, is mixed up with an underground rebel organization and could be in danger, Jakkin suddenly finds himself involved in a confusing world of politics and intrigue, and eventually on the run for his life. The plot of Heart's Blood gets a bit complex, and at first it was confusing for me (at a younger age) to follow. It was probably the first book I read that dealt with politics and kept me interested- because I could relate to the main character's perspective. At first he didn't care about political unrest, until he saw how changes in society would impact his personal life and those (people and dragons alike) he cared about. Then he could not help but get involved. A great story, set in a far-away world that is very believable. I find this book compelling every time I re-read it.

A Sending of Dragons- The third book continues with Jakkin and Akki living as fugitives in the mountains, their only company a fast-growing, half-wild brood of young dragons- the offspring of Jakkin's first dragon. They've undergone a transformation that gave them some of the dragon's powers- including the ability to withstand the desert night's below-freezing temperatures, and to communicate telepathically. But then they encounter a strange, primitive tribe of people who live deep in the mountain caves- and who have also discovered the changes dragons can make in human minds and bodies. These people have lived for generations without speaking, using mental telepathy to bind themselves together. Their society is full of rituals and dark secrets. Jakkin and Akki reluctantly get drawn into their world, finding it hard to resist because on the one hand, they want to rescue the dragons which are being ritually sacrificed by the mountain people, and on the other, they are susceptible to the primitive society's powerful mind-control. If anything, the storyline in A Sending of Dragons is more suspenseful than the previous two books, and it delves even deeper into the exploration of self, and moral questions about how people use dragons on Austar IV.

Thinking about it now, I find it interesting that this series looks so closely at how a society uses its animals- in the first two books, Jakkin didn't like that the dragons were raised for their meat and hides, but had no qualms about fighting them in the betting pits. In this third book, he encounters a society that sacrifices the dragons, but also honors and reveres them. I think if Jakkin had his own way, all the dragons would live wild, free of human control- but then people would barely be able to survive on the forbidding world of Austar IV.

There's now a fourth book in the series, Dragon's Heart but I didn't like it nearly as much as the first three. ( )